We were undecided about whether to do another dive trip, and to be honest pretty exhausted! So we thought we would go down and check out Phuket and think about it some more there. On the way south, we reconviened with Tomas and Verena for a lunch and discussion about Southern Thailand. They had settled in to a lovely little villa resort called Waterjade, at Muang Thani about 40 mins south of Khao Lak. Each day they were having a walk on a completely empty beach,...

Watching a crew of divers, including Reuben, cruise along underneath us out at the Surin Islands made Fintan and I want to do our PADI dive certification. So we made a plan to continue south but look out for good places to do it. It's a four day course, and most places in Thailand offer these courses so it's a question of finding a company you trust and think offer good dives as part of the course. Lonely Planet recommended Wicked Divers in Khao Lak, so we calle...

As we left Bangkok we got an email from fellow overlanders Tomas and Verena, who you may remember we met in UlanBataar and crossed into China with. How wonderful! They had found a lovely beach called Ban Krut, so we set off to meet them and enjoy the beach with our slightly lower Yoshimi. We took off the roofbox and roofrack as they were damaged and so she's had a good 25cm shaved off the top. It's strange to see her looking so squat and almost like a normal car...

Back to Bangkok and Rayong to get our rear wheel carrier fixed by ARB, and then to collect Reuben from the airport! Well, what we hadn't experienced before in the big city we did with Reuben! We even went into Cockatoo (a lady boy bar on Cowboy Soi). He and Fintan went looking for new cameras, I found a watch made from wood to replace my broken plastic watch. We ate and drank a lot! Then we went to Pattaya to meet up with Reuben cousin and a driller friend, Teflo...

One of the places on the must see list for this trip, for me at least, has been the bridge over the the River Kwai, Kanchanaburi. We left Bangkok for a weekend here, it isn't far to the northwest of the city. The main problem is getting out of Bangkok, onto a motorway. The traffic congestion is terrible; one morning it took us 40 minutes to drive 700m. Anyway, partly because of Bangkok traffic and partly because Seamus the tomtom took us a bizarre back road route...